This column originally appeared in Grant Pepper’s Sunday newsletter, which you can subscribe to (for free!) by clicking here. Just type your email into the “Daily Headlines” box.
There is a quote I think about often these days, when every day can feel like a historical event and words like unprecedented are used to the point of cliché:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.”
It’s credited to G.K. Chesterton, a turn-of-the-century English philosopher who was known as the “prince of paradox.” And I think it summarizes well the importance of historical context – not just today, but every day – and, by proxy, the great service people like Mark Sebastian Jordan (pictured above) provide to communities like ours.
Mark is our local history columnist. In case you didn’t know, his column, History Knox, publishes every Saturday morning on our website. We post it to social media Sunday morning – typically a time when we can all slow down, take in a feature story and reflect.
And this week is special because it marks the five-year anniversary of Mark’s column.
Mark has written about a wide variety of topics during that time. He’s covered everything from robberies to train wrecks; murders to celebrations. He’s written about forgotten people; forgotten towns; forgotten times and forgotten treasures (you can find his full archive here).
He has brought back to life – and returned to modern consciousness – some of Knox County’s most fascinating stories. He has delivered color and context to a time before ours – one that we likely never would have known about or understood, if not for Mark’s work.
And it has been work. Mark has spent long hours bringing Knox County’s past to life. He has combed through old newspapers and historical records, digging for names and dates and the proverbial (historical) needle in the haystack. He has walked graveyards and conducted interviews.
He has lived and breathed this column, quite literally, for the last five years.
And because of Mark’s dedication, I believe Knox County has benefited in the way G.K. Chesterton once described. We have become more well-informed and more aware. We’ve gained perspective and an appreciation for our shared past.
Mark has taken us back in time – and in doing so, he’s allowed us to better understand our present and future.
Please join me in thanking Mark for his dedication to this column – and this community – over the last five years (and well beyond). You can send him a personal note here (I will forward these to Mark early next week).
Without Mark’s work, I firmly believe our news reporting – while still relevant – would be absent something crucial: historical context. Our product, and our mission as a newsroom, would be incomplete. And our community would be worse off as a result.
Thank you, Mark, for your tireless dedication to local storytelling. And thank you to the hundreds of Knox Pages members who have made this kind of reporting possible.
If you’d like to support our newsroom – and, in turn, help fund Mark’s reporting in the years to come – please consider becoming a member today. Every penny goes directly toward newsroom efforts.
